Be a Shout of Color…

023

Picture Credit: Julianne Jackson

The fallen azalea flower…

far removed from its mother bush.

Bright pink, but face down in all the muck and mud that gathers before the opening of the drainage ditch.

Just the gentlest of showers could carry it into that darkest of places – forgotten.

But for now it is a shout of color within the dirty debris.

Being itself in the midst…as it is called to be…as it needs to be.

“Be who you are and be that well in order to honor the Master whose handiwork you are.” St. Francis de Sales

“When they walk through the valley of weeping, it will become a place of refreshing springs.”

 

+It has been awhile since I have posted on this blog and I hope now to return more regularly.  I have weekly been posting on my professional blog at http://www.lifelinesmobile.org/blog and you are welcome to visit me there. And yet I have missed this place, this bit of Godly sanctuary, and each of you my readers. I’m learning that in work we often wear seatbelts. I see God so connected in the all about me, it blesses me (and I h0pe you as well) to share those bits of light. In this crazy, mixed up world we need to remember God is with us. He is Emmanuel, and we in turn are called to be those shouts of color…that hope for the weary.

Advertisement

Emptiness turned Openness

empty

As Lent continues, I am coming to a deep understanding…

the giving up creates room in my heart…

an emptiness…

So many of us live in a culture of such fullness within our hearts and minds…

Have we become like the innkeeper who shouts, “There is no room here!” shunning the Lord?

To know God requires an emptying of self and yet cannot emptiness become openness?

It’s in the way we envision it…emptiness or openness.

Emptiness transformed by grace becomes an openness in which the fullness of praise can erupt.

Lord, I seek you in my emptiness…and I find you Lord in the openness.

Make it a Place of Springs…..

image via from the heart of j

image via from the heart of j

“As they go through the Bitter Valley, they make it a place of springs”(Ps86)

Be the bearer of the water from the well…

Be the water struck from the rock…

Be the water calmed by His word…

Be the water poured forth from His side…

Yes, as you go through the Bitter Valley of this day…

Make it a place of springs….

Allowing a current of grace to flow from you to others…

Yes, making it a place of springs.

Walking Each Other Home…

 

image via ccsthorton.com

image via ccsthorton.com

We are all just walking each other home…

In the good, the bad, the ugly and the beautiful…

we are all just walking each other home.

Our lives intersect and collide, bump into and bounce off of…

And yet we are all just walking each other home.

In our clumsy, wobbly way of journeying…

infused with grace…

we are all just walking each other home.

Live the Rising…

original artwork from the heart of j

original artwork from the heart of j

Praise God…each in his own way…throughout this holy day…

With song or dance or silent prayer…arms and heart lifted up in the air…

Celebrating the freedom He has gifted to you…

Through the death of His Son and a love so true.

Live thanksgiving…live the Rising!

Buzzing of Bee Thoughts…

 

image via newsroom.ucr.edu

image via newsroom.ucr.edu

The buzzing of bee thoughts…humming in the head…

prevent living the glory of the present moment…

with stings of future and past.

The soft gentle rain that hinders the bees’ busyness…

is the mist of fine grace received that quiets the hum…

when all I think, do, or say is brought to Him…

who is the honey of our peace.

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you.  Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. ” John 14:27

In the Gooey, Gummy, Messy, Marvelous…

image via from the heart of j

image via from the heart of j

Find God in the everyday…

In the midst…in the muck..in the ups…in the downs…

Believing in Him is not some form of escapism that takes us away from the richness of the everyday.

It is here, alleluia, we find Him…

In the now of today…in the all of life with us.

Yes, find God today in the everyday…in the midst…

In the gooey, gummy, messy, marvelous of the day…

For it is through Him, with Him, in Him in the unity of the Holy Spirit…

All glory and honor be yours almighty Father forever and ever…

In the everyday…in the midst…in the gooey, gummy, messy, marvelous of THIS day.

Lighting a Holy Lamp…

image via from the heart of j

image via from the heart of j

In the morning…When I begin to wake…it happened again…

That feeling that you, beloved, had stood over me …all night long…keeping watch…

that feeling…

that as soon as I began to wake….

you put your lips to my forehead and lit a holy lamp…

inside my heart.     – Hafiz

Unlocked doors and Opened Windows…

curtans

Jesus Christ walks even through our locked doors…

to bring us Peace.

He throws open wide the windows…

and our hearts are enlarged with the Gift of the Holy Spirit…

Making us all brothers and sisters in Christ.

May the Holy Spirit pierce our hearts and may His love pour forth…

And may this Love become a wellspring for others.

Happy Pentecost to all…Come, Holy Spirit, Come and enkindle a fire in the hearts of the faithful!

The Beauty of Becoming…

image via from the heart of j

image via from the heart of j

Have you ever looked into the eyes of others and seen the beauty of their becoming?

A beauty intertwined with the reality of their brokenness?

For grafted to Love eternal, brokenness is but the sap of transformation.

His gaze upon us penetrates the masks of the false self and draws us into the becoming.

Will you meet His gaze?